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Award-Winning Blast II Tours Japan with Meyer Sound M2D
In 1984, Bloomington, Ind., businessman Bill Cook founded the Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps with the modest goal of providing local youth with a positive music education experience. Corps Director James Mason's vision far exceeded that of a mundane marching band, though, and over the next fifteen years the Corps' unique mix of rhythm, movement and visuals evolved into Blast!, which premiered in 1999 at London's Apollo Theatre to months of sold-out performances. An Emmy-winning PBS special and a soundtrack album followed. After the show's 2000 Broadway premiere was awarded a Tony for Best Special Theatrical Event, the show branched out to include multiple companies in the U.S., Europe and beyond. The Blast team's newest creation, Blast II M.I.X. – Music in Xtreme, went on a 15-week tour of Japan, including a four week stint in Tokyo and performances in 10 other cities. The tour's organizer, Kyodo-Tokyo, Inc., has been involved in musical and theatrical events in Japan for over 40 years, including the Beatles' 1966 tour. As with previous Blast! presentations, sound designer Mark Hood called for the only audio system he trusts to handle the show's exceptional dynamics: Meyer Sound. Hood's list of live and studio credits is long, ranging from Bob Dylan, James Taylor and John Mellencamp to Diana Ross, John Scofield and the Cincinnati Pops, plus television shows and movies including "Thundercats," "All My Children," and "Falling from Grace," and a long list of theatre productions in New York, London, Japan, and elsewhere. For Blast!, Hood specified a system consisting of eight or nine (depending on the hall) M2D compact curvilinear array loudspeakers per side. The M2D cabinets are groundstacked with a custom steel support system, in conjunction with a Meyer Sound QuickFly MG-2D multipurpose grid. "The system can also be flown with the MG-2Ds," Hood explains, "but most venues in Japan outside of Tokyo and Osaka have no pick points in front of the proscenium, so the array must be groundstacked. There is great concern for physical stability during seismic events in Japan, and every local venue has its own rules — and veto power. Most standard FOH tower configurations are deemed too unstable by the majority of venues, so Sound Associates worked with us to implement a configuration that allows us to adjust coverage to suit every venue while meeting all national and local regulations regarding earthquake safety." The M2D arrays receive frontfill support from four UPM-1P ultracompact wide coverage loudspeakers deployed along the stage lip and a UPA-1P compact wide coverage loudspeaker on each side. Six legacy, unpowered UPA-2C UltraSeries loudspeakers are employed as sidefill stage monitors, while four MM-4 miniature wide-range loudspeakers supply spot fill. "One of the best things about the M2D array is that we can build the entire array with just four people, without the use of chain motors, forklift or a Genie lift, and can easily configure it to meet the requirements of all the different venues we are playing in," Hood remarks. "We can groundstack it in a fashion that meets all of Japan's stringent earthquake protection requirements, or it can be flown in those venues that are equipped with appropriate rigging points. Not only can we physically re-aim all the components to fit each venue's particular geometry, but we can also repatch the drive lines and group different components together, which allows us to gently trim the audio drive to various speaker groups and distribute acoustic power in an appropriate fashion, while still retaining all the advantages of a true line array topography. It's truly one of the most flexible and adaptable systems I've worked with." As Hood observes, the Meyer Sound system is ideally suited for the show's unique sonic characteristics. "The 22 brass players and many percussionists can generate plenty of SPL from the stage all by themselves, so the job of the sound system is to musically balance the performance and distribute it to all members of the audience in an exciting, dramatic fashion, without damaging their hearing. The smooth response of the M2D array allows us to blend reinforced sound with live acoustic sound in a seamless, very organic way, so that the horns don't sound brittle or electronic, they just sound like the world's greatest jazz-rock orchestra in the world's best concert hall: loud, dramatic, full-bodied and natural. The Meyer system was the perfect choice for our production." October, 2006 |
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